Tired but wiser for the time

After having done this job for as long as I have, and in dealing with our customers, I have realized that a majority of our customers are one time contact callers only. Majority of them just don't understand how the internet and other things work exactly. It's not their fault, it's the advertising, movies, etc.. etc.. They assume it's a flawless system always on, and when it's down, there's some geek in overall's tramping through a million wires to figure out what the pet rat unplugged.

In addition to having done this job, I've learned a lot of things about how to handle CSR's onthe line to get things done properly, how to handle myself in public in dealing with poor customer service, and how to resolve many issues with internet, phone and tv service that I might not have been so commonly fluent in before.

Now, I also realize I have an issue with getting and keeping "stuff." We overvalue stuff. That was, and still is a big problem for me when I have no money. I fell poor, and stuff seemed valuable, so almost instinctively I accumulate it. Friends leave something behind when they move, or I’ll see something as I'm walking down the street on trash night (beware of anything you find yourself describing as “perfectly good”), or I’ll find something in almost new condition for a tenth its retail price at a garage sale. And pow, more stuff. In fact these free or nearly free things weren’t bargains, because they were worth even less than they cost. It's not a matter of the value of what you acquire, it's a matter of how profitable is it to you? Be that as in re-sell value or other usefulness that derived from it. Most of the stuff I accumulate is worthless, because I don’t need it.

What I sometimes don't understand is that the value of some new acquisition isn’t the difference between its retail price and what I paid for it. It was the value I derived from it. Stuff is an extremely illiquid asset. Unless you have some plan for selling that valuable thing you got so cheaply, what difference does it make what it’s “worth?” The only way you’re ever going to extract any value from it is to use it. And if you don’t have any immediate use for it, you probably never will. This I have learned through years of going though this, and in my current still in debt at the bank situation, I found myself again striving to accumalate things to make up for my deficets.

The same thing for me applies to nic-nacs purchased during vacations. It's not the item you brought back that is the memory, it's the experiences you had that makes up your memories of the trip. A statue, a keychain, a t-shirt, none of these are memories. Sure they'll spark what you did and how you got it and where it came from, so you can bring forth those electrodes in your brain that retain the information from that trip. But is this all they're really good for? Most likely yes. that statue of the bear climbing the tree from your Yellowstone National Park vacation does no good sitting in a box, or sitting on the mantle if all it is there for is to remember the trip.

Lastly for the randomness of randomnessity, check out Pew Pew Pew! for links to some Charterieans World of Warcrack characters and their armory links.